Propylene glycol

Anyone use propylene glycol in their liquid taper?

Yes, but my compounding pharmacist makes it for me!!

 

 

I've not tried it. But I used Everclear and water for my Klonopin taper and it's worked out fairly well.

I was just going in here to ask about propylene glycol!

 

If anyone has experience of it. I'm tapering clonazepam, and I'm down at 0,75 mg. It's a bit tricky to cut the tablets into smaller pieces, and we had liquid clonazepam here in Sweden until a couple of years ago. I was reading about clonazepam and its solutability and found for instance this article; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1773224710500200

 

I bought a bottle of propylene glycol at the gas station (but yes, I know, is tecnical grade, not for human consumtion...), but it is not so dangerous. We are talking about drops! It's far from the same toxicity as ethylene glycol.

 

And I'm studying chemistry right now, I'm in the half of the high school-chemistry, so at least I know how much to use it and count for a good solution!

People on here who don't want to use alcohol to dissolve their benzo sometimes use propylene glycol. But they don't make a solution with it! They use it, as we alcohol-dissolvers used it -- to dissolve the amount of benzo we're using for our taper. Usually 1 or 2 mgs of benzo. The rule of thumb I used was 2mls of alcohol for 1 mg of valium. You can use the same rule of thumb for PG. You just need enough of the solvent to dissolve your benzo. Then top the rest up (in my case it was a 100 ml beaker) with water.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Katz

 

 

Different benzodiazepines have different solubilities in different solvents. I will defer to others who have expertise in analytical chemistry/drug formulation and have read the study Rulle Rivare referenced about the solubility of diazepam and clonazepam in propylene glycol/water mixtures, but it looks to me like a different “rule of thumb” (ratio) may be called for in the case of clonazepam.

 

Rulle Rivare: If you choose to use propylene glycol (PG), might I strongly encourage you to use pharmaceutical grade PG that meets whatever quality standards apply in your country — perhaps European Pharmacopoeia?

 

Lunkhead5353: Apologies for hijacking your thread.  Are you aware that a commercially manufactured  2mg/mL oral concentrate of lorazepam is available in the US via prescription? Have you tried searching the Tapering off Ativan Support Thread or asking your question there?  If not, here’s the link: Tapering off Ativan Support Thread

Different benzodiazepines have different solubilities in different solvents.

 

Good point, Libertas. Maybe someone with a chemistry background can help the OP figure out how much PG to use.

 

Katz

Thank you, oregonkatz.  I hope the same!

 

fwiw: Lorazepam was not included in the study Rulle Rivare cited (the only benzos analyzed were diazepam and clonazepam). However, based on other sources I’ve encountered (e.g. Merck), lorazepam’s solubility in propylene glycol appears to be similar to that of diazepam.